deal with this if something really is a poorly in at the earth then i'm going to hit it you know so nasa has a program that's looking for near earth objects these are our small asteroids that orbit near the earth and might at some point in time in the future strike the earth so nasa is aware of where more than ninety percent of these things are so far none of these asteroids is projected to hit the earth if one of them were projected to hit the earth at some time in the future then we would want to know about it this far in advance as possible we need to be able to study this object we need to be able to know exactly what it's made of is it rubble is it a solid piece and be able to devise a strategy for how to deflect it the farther ahead you know about these problems the better your opportunities are for being able to mitigate them all you need to do if you can get to these asteroids quickly enough just tweak it and then it'll miss the earth by a great distance by the time you know if finally reaches here and when you say tweak it you know hollywood portrays kind of our defense mechanis